Lori Alexander Dishes Out Heartless Advice to Wife Who Was Sexually Abused

Admin note: This post is not part of Kathi’s ongoing series reviewing Lori Alexander’s book, The Transformed Wife, but is a “special report,” if you will. The following was brought to our attention, and Kathi and I feel strongly that this kind of “counseling” needs to be addressed publicly. This advise can cause great harm to women emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It is cruel! Thank you, Kathi for putting this post together. ~Julie Anne

Claire indicates that she was sexually assaulted in her past and even though she is in a loving relationship, she is currently experiencing physical symptoms (vomiting, “body reacts”) when having sex. A quick glance at this suggests that this woman may be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. How does Lori suggest taking care of this problem? By listening to Michael Pearl’s teachings on Romans. Ugh.

Ken then chimes in and offers very little comfort. Why is Ken commenting anyway? He needs to get off Lori’s “women’s only” blog and Facebook page and keep his comments to himself. He has no right giving women advice if Lori isn’t allowed to give men advice.

Ken starts off by letting Claire know that Lori really can’t help her because, “Lori’s brief post cannot address such rare cases.” So Claire’s “rare case” is of no concern except to continue to push their agenda (and Michael Pearl too). Ken also addresses Claire’s inability to physically enjoy sex by saying:

To have a relationship in marriage you must seek intimacy, and to seek intimacy requires vulnerability and trust. If you cannot learn to enjoy sex with your spouse you are defrauding him. One can give any number of excuses why they are justified in depriving a spouse, but such things are all self-centered and not loving towards their spouse.

He dares to say this to a woman who has experienced sexual trauma! He is telling Claire that she is making excuses for her inability to enjoy sex with her husband. Nice, Ken. By the way, Ken is a consultant to orthodontists and has no expertise in the area of trauma, so why does he think he has the right to counsel someone who is a victim of sexual assault? What he should be doing is offering to help her find sexual assault resources in her area so she can begin healing.

Claire responds to Lori and Ken by saying she can “try harder.” My heart is breaking here for Claire and my mind is raging at Ken and Lori. Claire needs to seek professional help to deal with her trauma. “Trying harder” isn’t going to work if she hasn’t dealt with her past experiences.

Then Josh (why is this dude chiming in on a women-only page?) has the gall to tell Claire that she should be able to differentiate between sex with her husband and her past sexual assaults. Which leads heartless Lori to state:

Claire (redacted) if you truly believed that you are dead and freed from you [sic] sin and your past and that you are now a new creature in Christ, you would have no problem being intimate with your husband.

“If you truly believed…you would have no problem.” Nice way to shame a victim of sexual assault, Lori. Lori truly does not care about helping other people. She only cares about pushing her agenda and hoping that one of her blog posts will go viral again.

By the way, you won’t see any of these comments on The Transformed Wife’s Facebook page because she deleted the entire thread. Lori and Ken could have offered compassion and understanding and assistance and given resources in this woman’s area. They could have kept the thread up and offered hope to someone else who has experienced what this woman is going through. But this is Lori. If another woman’s issue doesn’t fit in a nice, neat, perfectly submissive package, Lori doesn’t know what to do with it except delete.

I will reiterate again what has been said on previous posts; if you are here reading from Lori Alexander’s page, please stop looking to her for advice. You will only find her standard answers to everything as she seems to lack the ability to think about another person’s unique situation.

If you are a victim of abuse and would like help in finding resources in your area, please send us an email noted in the contact section. If you feel comfortable commenting on the post, you will find kind and compassionate people here to support you. If you are not comfortable with reaching out to us but would like information on abuse resources, here are some good places to start:

90 thoughts on “Lori Alexander Dishes Out Heartless Advice to Wife Who Was Sexually Abused”

I wanted to vomit too, after reading Lori and Ken’s heartless and demeaning words of “advice.” In my view, their shallow, legalist mindset is spiritual malpractice, but I fear they have not suffered one moment’s regret for their callous comments.

If the briefest summary of that poor woman’s account breaks our hearts, I can’t begin to imagine how our Savior’s heart breaks, too.

I don’t know if it’s appropriate here, but I would like to suggest Speaking Truth In Love’s ministry to sexual abuse victims. Dale and Faith Ingraham are a married couple, and together they lead this compassionate, powerful ministry. Faith is a sexual abuse survivor…

False teaching abounds. “If you believe” you will be instantly healed of your past trauma. “If you believe” you’ll be healed of cancer. “If you believe” you’ll be wealthy. “If you believe” your abusive husband will turn into a wonderful saint. “If you believe” all your problems will go away. This is not what I read in the Bible. Instead I find Joseph (who believed) being sold into slavery and thrown into prison for many years. David believed and was on the run and hiding from King Saul for many years (and suffered much emotional anguish for a LONG time). Job believed and lost all his possessions, children, and health. Paul believed and his thorn in the flesh was not removed, and he certainly didn’t have a trouble free life. What the Bible DOES promise us is that our Savior will never leave us or forsake us. He understands our pain and heartbreak and will never put us on a “guilt trip” in our suffering. Be encouraged for “There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

But this is Lori. If another woman’s issue doesn’t fit in a nice, neat, perfectly submissive package, Lori doesn’t know what to do with it except delete.

I will reiterate again what has been said on previous posts; if you are here reading from Lori Alexander’s page, please stop looking to her for advice. You will only find her standard answers to everything as she seems to lack the ability to think about another person’s unique situation.

I ran into this same issue with another poster on another site or two, who keeps insisting everyone can be helped or cured if they just follow her advice on how to handle X, Y, Z, even though I used to have problem X myself and told her a few times over that following her advice (using secular treatments, such as psychologists, etc) did not work for me in particular.

Some people get very hung up in viewing a problem in only one way, and thinking there can be only a one- size- fits all solution for everyone.

I sometimes toss out advice for things that worked for me personally when I am on these blogs, but I am only offering it from the view that it did work for me, so it might work for you.

(I recognize what worked for me may not work for someone else.)

I think with Lori especially, she has some weird agenda to uphold sexist, stereotypical gender roles no matter what, no matter who it harms, so she will give potentially harmful or very insensitive advice to women who (as Kathi mentioned in the OP) don’t fit Lori’s paradigms and boxes neatly.

Lori is delighted to throw women under the bus if and when their lived reality does not line up with her worldview.

Toxic is right, Daisy. I just read Lori’s recent post from a guest poster, Robin Jennifer, on being Warrior Wives. The gist of the article is to be willing to suffer for the privilege of being a wife of a cheating husband – and an unrepentant one at that – in order to save his soul. I posted a comment which is still in moderation. If Lori doesn’t post it, I will post it here. Oh, and by the way, I read the guest post on Lori’s blog by Celina Hernandez on marrying young – as in 16 yrs. of age. Many people who commented at her blog disagreed with this article, asking for the writer to cite sources to back up her assumptions. Lori, and the folks who support her, are clueless about marriage, sex, men and women, and life in general.

And Lori keeps saying “she is dead” “you are dead” over and over again like a brainwashing mantra…because this clipped phrase doesn’t make any sense. Is it shorthand for saying “you are dead to sin”? In which case Lori is calling the victim’s feelings sinful. Basically telling the victim that it is her righteous duty to be numb to the effects of traumatic abuse.

Christians are not spiritually dead, we are “alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:11

Why does she keep saying “you are dead”? I suspect it is to subtly drill into women’s thinking that they should be dead to their own feelings, dignity and human rights. Women should be lifeless automatons that obey their husbands and the patriarchal system.

I believe that Lori just wants to win. No matter the situation, Lori always has to be right. In that context, vulnerable readers will never get the empathy they desire from her. It seems as if a reader questions Lori’s advice, she goes into full defense mode.
Her blog is not about Jesus, mentoring others or teaching. Lori’s blog is about her. She exhibits a level of insecurity and narcissism than prevents her from understanding the damage her personal need to be right causes her readers. It seems as if Lori’s self-esteem is tied up with her need to always be right. In turn, she will shame, delete comments, contradict herself, lash out at others, play the martyr-anything that protects her need to always be right.
Unfortunately, this toxic need results in a lot of victim blaming and shamng. Add a dash of denial and you have the perfect recipe for an immature, egocentric and manipulative individual. She should stick to advice on salad making.

Yes, this is true of many people. I also honestly think Lori isn’t all that bright. She can’t reason with people, because she doesn’t have anything to back it up. And she is insecure, so she can’t say ‘hey, maybe I don’t know much about this. Please enlighten me.’

Lea, Yes, its why her ministry is online and not in real life. In real life you don’t have the delete button to handle people you don’t have an answer for. There is an old post (I am trying to find it) where she admitted in her childhood she always had to be right. But of course now she is “transformed” and she isn’t like that anymore, LOL.

As a victim of sexual abuse… I can say that you have to reprocess it in each new situation that brings up memories… When I got married, I needed time to process it. When our first child was born and died, I had to reprocess it, and process the new grief. It doesn’t “go away” forever. We learn to process it and deal with it. It no longer controls me, but there could be more situations that come up in the future where I’ll need to reprocess it again in that new context.

The Alexanders are classic Job’s comforters. Here is the definition of Job’s comforter:

a person who aggravates distress under the guise of giving comfort.

Job’s comforters told Job that his suffering was God’s punishment for his and that he needed to repent and seek God more. Doesn’t that sound familiar? According to Biblical counselling, when prayer and reading the Bible with more earnest do not work, then your continued suffering is due to unconfessed sins.

I remember John MacArthur likening Job’s comforters to secular psychologists and therapists who used unbiblical methods and skirted the issues of sin when working with their patients. Deflection and projection much? Job’s comforters DID press their friend on sin. Job’s comforters DID tell him to seek God more. They were nothing like secular psychologists and therapists. They were everything that today’s “biblical” counselors are. Of course Job’s comforters did not tell Job to read the Bible more because none of the 66 books had been written.

Can someone please handcuff this woman’s hands behind her back so she can’t write this self righteous, toxic crap anymore? !? Her page needs to be shut down. Lord knows how many people have taken her “advice ” to heart and are now dead because they thought they had to stay in an abusive relationship.

David C, I agree with you about Job’s comforters. I was in an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church for thirteen years and that describes perfectly most of the people there. If you’re going through a difficult situation, it MUST be because you’re not “right with the Lord “. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that same BS.

Well, so far my comment over at Lori A’s blog has not come out of moderation. I wonder if it will at this point. However, I did comment over at The Transformed Wife on Facebook under To Warrior Wives of Straying Husbands, responding to a person named Leed Lozano Scott. So far my comments remain, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they are scrubbed on Facebook as well at some point.

The following is my response on Lori’s blog under the article To Warrior Wives of Straying Husbands.

*I think every situation is different, and I wouldn’t presume to know the will of God for every Christian wife – or husband for that matter – who has a spouse that is unfaithful. One thing I have to ask: Would this same kind of article be asking husbands to suffer if their wives are unfaithful? Or is it just the wife’s place to put up with an unfaithful husband? I ask because I’ve encountered this kind of thinking in certain Christian circles, which I would call a double standard.

Further, and more importantly, what this article fails to mention is the need for the wife to set boundaries with her cheating husband. A wife who has knowledge of her husband having an affair (or many affairs) needs to protect herself. If her husband is currently having sexual relations with one or more women, she needs to tell him that she will not be sexually intimate with him. She also needs to let him know that he needs to be checked regularly for STD’s. To allow him to be sexually intimate with her while he is running around sends a message and it is this: I have no respect for myself, and you don’t have to respect me either. Even more concerning, she is risking getting a sexually transmitted disease such as herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, or HIV/AIDS, the latter being potentially fatal. This is not the kind of suffering Jesus wants wives to endure (or husbands for that matter).

So, if a wife decides to remain with her unfaithful husband who has no remorse and is intent on filling up his lusts, then it is imperative that boundaries be drawn for her safety and self-respect, sending a message to her husband that she places a high value on her body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I would issue the same advice to husbands with wives who are unfaithful and continue to have an extramarital affair/s.*

To add to what I said above. I don’t nor would I recommend a wife (or husband) to remain with a spouse who is continuing to cheat and has no intention of stopping. But I was responding in line with the article posted at Lori’s blog specifically regarding a wife who decides to stay with her unfaithful husband. To me, remaining with a spouse who clearly has no intention of putting an end to their risky and disrespectful behavior, is asking to be an abused doormat. It’s giving a message to that cheating spouse that they can have their cake and eat it too without any negative consequences.

Wow, I wonder what Ken’s advice would have been to a man who wrote in with the same problem (I get that Lori wouldn’t dare post on his page). I think it might have been a little different? This is so sad. Like a lot of things in the world, I am past anger to sadness.

Darlene
A poster on Lori’s site did post almost exactly what you said. She was worried her husband was having an affair. She was worried he would bring home disease. She asked was she sinning if she did not want to fulfill wifely duties. Lori deleted it withing the next 20 min.

Lori is a blind guide. She is blinded by ignorance, arrogance, and self gratification. She has no understanding of how the Holy Spirit works. She has no understanding of sanctification. Or even how a relationship with Christ works. Lori is without love and is a clanging gong.
All I can say as a victim of childhood/teenage sexual abuse who has suffered with PTSD , dissociation, all while being married and trying to function as a wife while working through memories upon memories triggered by even just expectation of sex she has no idea or any authority to speak on the subject.
The Lord was and is still is nothing but patient, loving and kind. He did not ever expect me to have enough faith, or believe. I was so broken inside that I could barely utter the word God sometimes. Through kind loving people he cradled me in his arms. He wept with me when others cried with me. He revealed himself to me as a loving father would through things in my heart that only meant something to me.
He stayed by my side and still does when I was hating everything. I hated church. I hated people who called themselves christians…( I still do at times)

I would say above everything else God did was reveal to me through tiny and huge monumental feats that were miraculous in nature that he was real. Really real. The biggest message that I have ever and can ever know through and through is he cares about my smallest wants. He fulfilled them. Not only fulfilled them but he did beyond my expectation. He cares about my needs. He revealed himself to me.

And in that revelation time after time after time after time..hundreds of times that he cares, he listens,that he loves me. I began to trust what the word of God has to say. What the word of God had to say about the life of this saviour Jesus. About his mercy. About his grace. About his love.

He did this while I was in therapy. He did this when I had to face my abusers. He did this during a rotten , difficult marriage. Through everything even I could barely function.

I can say that it was absolutely nothing in myself that has brought me where I am in Christ today. I did the grunt work of facing my fears, my tormentors, my memories , but it is Christ who sanctified me and brought me to himself. And I believe in my weakest state, he gave me strength to push through. And to top it off he healed my state of mind just recently 100% towards intimacy with my husband. After 30 yrs of marriage.
And I would love to throw it in Lori’s face, that he answered a simple prayer from a pastor online that God would heal and transform those who had body image issues. And I prayed that prayer along with him. And to you Lori if you read this: I prayed it completely MOCKING IT IN MY HEART! Thinking GOD would NEVER DO THAT. I laughed at the prayer even.
Not 4 days later the transformation of my mind started and continued for about 2 wks. I had no idea what was “wrong” with me. It was startling, scary and bizarre. I had totally forgotten about that prayer I prayed online. And then I remembered and cried my heart out . For God really did do a miracle of my mind. He transformed it. Fully and completely.
So to you Lori……who told that woman she had to have enough faith, she had to have enough belief…….YOU are wrong. And it does take time. You are so wrong.

Every time I hear the “You have to have enough faith” line, I always add the unspoken “…Like MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

I just think these things are completely unverifiable and unfalsifiable, from a scientific perspective. So you can’t say ‘this advice is wrong, it failed’ because they just say you didn’t try it ‘enough’.

See also communism. Con men. Everyone else trying to sell you something that doesn’t work.

Even worse, Lea, ‘you didn’t have enough faith’. It’s not enough to try every recipe in their cookbook you must have faith, and obviously, if you tried it and it didn’t work, that’s why. Also completely unverifiable.

“Lori and Ken are shills for the Neo-Calvinist elite. It makes me so sad and angry to see women seek their advice and then get fed back this mantra of powerlessness and worthlessness.”

They’re not Neo-Cals. They are more about whoever fits their beliefs they will shill for. If John Piper, or John McArthur or a Catholic like Matt Walsh says or writes something they agree with they’ll post it. But I would say most of all they are devoted to the teaching of Michael Pearl who is not a Neo-Cal.

@Headless Unicorn Guy, as a former Fundy, you nailed it! The IFB church, and others like it, is a constant game of ” I’m better than you “, mainly coming from people who don’t have the slightest clue what other people are going through. My husband and I were talking last night about the time this crazy Fundy woman told me that the reason I had migraines was because I was living in the flesh. It really is ridiculous how some people think they’re above something bad happening to them. They certainly don’t read that Bible they claim to love so much.

Also, Bless Anna for her ‘Look, Lori’ because you can tell she is PO’d that all these idiots who have ZERO experience giving this blasé advice.

I was listening to a podcast the other day about grief and how you have to let yourself feel it and it can take years…And they just want things to be instant. It doesn’t work like that.

The first part of that, I sort of brought this up on my Daisy blog under my recent “Worm Theology” post.

I mentioned in my ‘Worm Theology’ post that it seems to me that the preachers and Christians who most often like to sermonize at the rest of us that God barely tolerates us, Jesus hates us, and who like to tell us we are not ‘victors’ are they themselves not lacking in self esteem.

The guys who preach this stuff have more than enough self-confidence. If you have healthy self esteem and have never had a feeling of worthlessness (as I grew up with), it’s very, very easy for you to tell someone else God doesn’t like them, they have no worth, etc.

Or on the singles stuff – the married people who are 55 years old who got married when they were 25 who like to tell us 35+ years old never marrieds how to get married or how to date, or tell us to just shut up and be content with our singleness (if we express a desire to be married).

It’s really easy to give simplistic advice to people for problems you are not going through, never have, and never will (or haven’t dealt with in decades yourself).

Also: yes, as Lea brought up, I’ve also mentioned this on other sites and was thinking of doing a post on my Daisy blog (and may have already mentioned it in one, I think), how 99% of Christians expect and demand INSTANT healing for any and every difficulty in life (sickness, death in the family, depression, divorce, joblessness, whatever it may be).

Most Christians don’t understand or realize that healing is a process that takes weeks, months, or years.

Some of the few people who appear to get over a tragedy quickly are, IMO, likely folks who have repressed their pain, living in denial, and simply putting on a fake “happy mask” so those around them think they are all over whatever the painful problem was.

And Lori keeps saying “she is dead” “you are dead” over and over again like a brainwashing mantra…because this clipped phrase doesn’t make any sense. Is it shorthand for saying “you are dead to sin”? In which case Lori is calling the victim’s feelings sinful. Basically telling the victim that it is her righteous duty to be numb to the effects of traumatic abuse.

Christians are not spiritually dead, we are “alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:11

Why does she keep saying “you are dead”? I suspect it is to subtly drill into women’s thinking that they should be dead to their own feelings, dignity and human rights. Women should be lifeless automatons that obey their husbands and the patriarchal system.

I mentioned this over a year ago at TWW blog, but it fits here.

Lori repeating to this woman that “you are dead to sin” over and over again reminds me of this old blog post I read about 2, 3 years ago.

A Christian woman had depression, PTSD, and/or anxiety, so she saw a Christian counselor of some sort.

The therapist asked her to describe her problem and history, so she did. She said her Christian therapist then went to a black board where she drew that stick-figure cartoon that Christians used to explain how the Gospel works. So, the woman counselor drew a cross on its side, which served as a bridge to reach God, with a stick figure standing on one of the cliffs.

So, the counselor asked her patient (the woman writing this post I was reading), if she understood.

The woman was like, yeah, I get it, I accepted Jesus as my savior years ago, but knowing Jesus as my Savior has not stopped my depression, panic attacks, etc. I’m still having mental health problems, she told the counselor.

So, the counselor would go to her chalk board in her office and re-draw the stick figure on a cliff with the cross on its side drawing again.

The woman said, it was as though this woman felt the ONLY reason I was hurting and having problems is I lacked the Gospel or did not understand it.

I’ve run into similar stuff from Christians I’ve seen on TV, on blogs, or come across in real life.

There are some Christians who act like if you just read the Bible, or pray, or have faith, or understand the Gospel, then POOF! and PRESTO! all your mental health problems will instantly vanish.

And I hate to break it to them, but that is not reality for a lot of people out there. You can pray, read your Bible, have faith, and trust in Jesus as Savior, and still have problems in life.

Lori scrubbed my comments on her Facebook page in which I said that wives of cheating husbands who have no intention to stop cheating should not be sexually intimate in order to protect themselves from STD’s. I’m going to say it point blank: Lori is a stupid woman. To teach women that they should be sweet and submissive to unrepentant adulterers is telling women to accept abuse. It is telling women to disrespect their own body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It’s time to start a Facebook page: Against the Toxic Teachings of Lori Alexander.

Darlene,
I don’t know if you would find this sufficient enough, but one of the posters above started a Tumblr blog tracking all of Lori’s hypocritical comments:Things Godly Women Say (tumblr blog)

You said,

o teach women that they should be sweet and submissive to unrepentant adulterers is telling women to accept abuse.

Yes. One problematic aspect of patriarchal / complementarian teaching about troubled or abusive marriages is that their advice enables abuse.

For severely abusive marriages (whether verbally abusive or physically), the only solution is for the target to divorce the abuser and stay away permanently (i.e., divorce).

For lesser abusive situations, the wife (the wife is usually the target in abusive marriages) should put boundaries into place, which would involve the wife putting negative consequences into place for whatever negative thing the husband does.

If the wife keeps sweetly submitting, she is only rewarding the husband for his poor behavior, which is NOT an incentive for the husband to change.

Job’s comforters told Job that his suffering was God’s punishment for his and that he needed to repent and seek God more. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

According to Biblical counselling, when prayer and reading the Bible with more earnest do not work, then your continued suffering is due to unconfessed sins.

Yep, and a lot of Christians use this reasoning not just for abusive marriages, but for everything else – for people who have anxiety, depression, people who have experienced job loss, death in the family, etc.

They act like any and all pain and problems in life can be solved through spiritual means, which is usually not the case for a lot of people.

I sometimes see this thinking in televised Christian sermons. It annoys me so much.

I usually see a Christian pastor hold up a copy of a Bible during a sermon and make a comment like, “If more people just read this book, followed this book, and its principles, their life would go more smoothly.”

I’m sorry, but no.

I spent years living a squeaky clean lifestyle and following the Bible as best I knew how, but I still had problems!

It is so bogus and so misleading for Christians to hold out the Bible, or prayer, or faith in Jesus as 100% guaranteed cures for any and all problems in life.
People may or may not derive comfort out of Bible reading, prayer, etc, but a lot of us do not experience miraculous healing from that stuff.

I remember John MacArthur likening Job’s comforters to secular psychologists and therapists who used unbiblical methods and skirted the issues of sin when working with their patients. Deflection and projection much?

Job’s comforters DID press their friend on sin. Job’s comforters DID tell him to seek God more. They were nothing like secular psychologists and therapists. They were everything that today’s “biblical” counselors are. Of course Job’s comforters did not tell Job to read the Bible more because none of the 66 books had been written.

A large chunk of my clinical depression was caused by codependency, not by “personal sin.” And I had to learn about all this mostly from reading secular psychology sources.(*)

If I was still operating under the John MacArthur perspective of “all your problems are your fault and caused by your sin” I would still be trapped in a severe amount of depression to this day.

JMac and guys who promote such thinking have no clue what they are talking about.

*Side note: not that secular psychologists / psychiatrists are great, either, necessarily. The ones I saw for over 20 years never got to the root of my problem – I had to figure it out on my own.

But IMO, secular psychology is about ten times better than “Christian counseling.”

Most Christian counseling I’ve read about amounts to little more than victim-blaming, telling people their sin is to blame for their problems, and telling them to read the Bible more, none of which will correct whatever the problem is, but only compound it.

… So, if a wife decides to remain with her unfaithful husband who has no remorse and is intent on filling up his lusts, then it is imperative that boundaries be drawn for her safety and self-respect, sending a message to her husband that she places a high value on her body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. …

One more thing I’d add (which is funny, because I’ve never had kids)….

In the ton of reading I’ve done by psychologists (who write up case studies), not only is the wife sending a bad message to her husband about herself, but, if there are children involved, any daughters get the message from the role modeling of their mother that it’s okay for a man to treat a woman in this manner.

So, when the daughter grows up and dates, and if she marries, she will not know or believe it’s okay for her to have boundaries, and she will tolerate a lot of unnecessary awful behavior from boyfriends or husbands.

Any sons in the marriage will get the idea from a wife that puts up with a serial cheater or abuser, that women will put up with garbage, and maybe it’s okay to treat women like garbage.

Lori scrubbed my comments on her Facebook page in which I said that wives of cheating husbands who have no intention to stop cheating should not be sexually intimate in order to protect themselves from STD’s. I’m going to say it point blank: Lori is a stupid woman.

In the ton of reading I’ve done by psychologists (who write up case studies), not only is the wife sending a bad message to her husband about herself, but, if there are children involved, any daughters get the message from the role modeling of their mother that it’s okay for a man to treat a woman in this manner.

That remains a possibility, I should say. It may not happen, but it does seem to happen a lot, based on the case studies I kept reading.

In my own family, I had mixed feelings on this. My dad used to mildly verbally abuse my mother. My dad would do stuff like ridicule my mother at the dinner table until she cried and then keep on.

Even though my mother role modeled doormat behavior for me, I knew as young as age 5 that this sort of bullying by my dad was wrong.

By the time I got to my mid or late teens, I started standing up to my father on my mother’s behalf. Any time my dad started pulling his “bully and tease mom until she cries” bullying crap, I would start chewing him out fiercely, tell him to knock it off, it was NOT funny, he was bullying, etc, and he would stop it and back down. My mother never defended herself though.

Most she would do is beg him through tears “Please stop hurting me.” Her sweet pleading through tear drops was not enough to stop him (though it should have been), but my anger and screaming at him to stop being a rude butthead who made his wife cry did.

So, I guess it depends on the kid. Some kids will see their mother being targeted and grow up to be targets, while others may still spot there are problems with this.

(I grew up to be a target, but that was out of duty to my mother, who raised me to be a nice, sweet Christian girl, and she felt that being “nice and sweet” and being a good Christian meant being a total doormat. I was kind of a mixed case, I suppose. I knew bully behavior was wrong and was willing to fight back, but my mother heavily discouraged me from fighting back on my own behalf.)

But seems like 99% of the case studies I’ve read, if a girl grows up seeing her mother defer to a jerk or bully of a husband (as Lori A. advocates women do), she will grow up willingly accepting poor treatment off men.

Lori A. is creating willing, new victims for abusers out there. She’s creating women to walk into, or stay, in abusive and intolerable relationships. Lori A. is a victim-making factory.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those Christian women finally get tired of all this garbage, associate it with God, and decide to leave the faith and declare themselves atheists.
So, Lori A. can be thought of as an Atheist-Making Factory, too, IMO. Ironic for a woman who claims she is promoting “godly beliefs.”

So to you Lori……who told that woman she had to have enough faith, she had to have enough belief…….YOU are wrong. And it does take time. You are so wrong.

Maybe this is a bit off point, since Lori has been on record as saying she never reads the Gospels(??), but in the Gospels, Jesus said the amount of faith is pretty irrelevant (faith the size of a mustard seed, and such seeds are tiny).

I think the point of Jesus’ comment on that is that it’s not the size of your faith but whom you put your faith in, so if you are putting your faith in God, even just a teeny, tiny amount, that’s all that God needs to work with.

As for Job’s Counselors, it’s always those who have NEVER been there who are first with the wagging fingers and glib advice for those who ARE there.

Yep. This is one of several pet peeves I have with most Christians, so I bring this up time from time.

Or, even if the Christian you are talking to has in fact experienced the trouble you are currently going through, they may still lack sympathy and empathy if that ordeal happened to them 20+ years ago.

They feel that because they got through “it” (whatever “it” is) okay and peachy keen, you should be able to suck it up buttercup and get over it now. I’ve run into that variation, usually from my sister, but from a few other Christians.

BTW, I came across a study a year or more ago that said this is in fact a thing. I don’t know if I book-marked the page or not. It was a study about empathy.

The study found that, ironically, some of the most un-empathetic folks you can talk to are ones who have already been through the same problem you’re having now, but they already dealt with it years ago and have recovered.

(Their view is, they got through it okay, so you should be able to as well, so stop crying to them about your problem because they feel you are being a whiny cry baby about it. Man, does that ever describe my sister at times, which is one reason of ten I stopped confiding in her years ago about any stuff I am going through.)

Even worse, Lea, ‘you didn’t have enough faith’. It’s not enough to try every recipe in their cookbook you must have faith, and obviously, if you tried it and it didn’t work, that’s why. Also completely unverifiable.

Oh man. Not to get this thread too off topic, but this so totally applies to dating advice, as well.

Even if you try the standard Christian dating advice (which most Christians pressure you to do), and it does not work, they will blame YOU for still being single, rather than admitting maybe their dating advice is crappy and useless.

I love it. Many Christians (especially the more famous ones who have blogs) pressure you to take their dating advice, but when it does not work (and it will not), they will blame you for it and get angry at you.

(Can I get an “amen” from HUG on that, or any other over age 30 singles here? LOL!)

I must make some corrections about Job’s comforters that I posted about above. They did not just rebuke Job and spit out meaningless Christianese cliches about sin and repentance. They:

-traveled to come along Job’s side and mourned with him
-wept upon seeing Job, and ripped their clothes and pour dust on their heads.
-sat with Job for SEVEN days without saying a word
-allowed Job to state his grievances in a long monologue before they chimed in.

So no, they did not reflexively spit out vapid cliches in response to people’s suffering. They actually did a lot more than that. So it’s quite unfair to equate Job’s comforters with the Alexanders.

I just visited Lori Alexander’s blog. It looks like a Christian parody site like Betty Bowers from Landover Baptist. I see that the satire site has not been active since 2012. I don’t blame them. In the past 10 years or so, Evangelical Christians have become the caricatures of themselves. When truth is stranger than fiction, satire does not work.

David C: You must be going to the wrong site. Lori A’s blog is up and running and quite current. She just made a post today titled, Making It Easy For Your Husband To Not Lust. I didn’t read the article yet, but I would guess the gist of it is: Give your husband SEX ON DEMAND whenever he wants to have it. Lori is rather predictable.https://thetransformedwife.com/

Oh my….I went over to read Lori A’s most recent article – yeah, I know I must be a glutton for punishment – and guess what? That article is written by Trey, the fella who frequently comments at Lori’s blog complaining and whining about the way women are all the time. The same guy that blames women for the reason marriages fail because of the Big Bad Boogey Man of Feminism.

I went over to The Transformed Wife on Facebook and guess what? I have earned the honor of being banned. LoL! Now I, too, am on the list of those whom Lori Alexander has snubbed. Should I consider this a privilege?

I would definitely join a FB site about correcting Lori Alexander’s false theology. I am stoked I just got the book God’s word to women by Katherine C. Bushnell. She knew Greek, Hebrew and goes back and dispels things by translators that are misunderstood by the original language and historical relevance. She goes back from Genesis forward where the misunderstandings of women are concerned. And I have another book coming any day along those same lines. I am stoked.

@Sunshine
“David C., I agree with you about Job’s comforters. I was in an independent Fundamental Baptist Church for thirteen years and that describes perfectly most of the people there. If you’re going through a difficult situation, it must be because you’re not “right with the Lord.” I can’t tell you how many times I heard that same BS.”

I couldn’t agree with you more Sunshine, and David C. Did you attend the same abusive Baptist church that I attended Sunshine? Lori Alexander would have been embraced as a spiritual mother (queen) at my former prison church! Before my surgery, I had an important Baptist man tell me that the reason I was having health issues was because of “my own sin.” Having a tumor in my abdomen wasn’t because of “my own sin,” it just happened. I responded by asking him, “Did you tell your father that same thing before he died of cancer?” You could have heard the dust bunny hit the floor, complete silence.

Then I tried to share my plight with the woman prayer chain leader (she prides herself in being called “spiritual mother” by those she deems less spiritual than herself), and her arms went flying through the air as she stated, “We don’t speak such things into the air here!” She didn’t want to hear of my concerns, my fears, my hurts, and my pain.

Nope! And she didn’t even offer to pray with me or for me! So my experience with the Baptist denomination gives leaves me with such hurt and pain. I will never join another Baptist church again as long as I live for I never experienced the love of people there, nor the love for Jesus Christ there. Only self absorption and self promotion. Thankfully, our LORD sent unchurched believers to minister, bring me meals, pray for me, and offer love and support.

And Lori’s teachings remind me so much of those cold hearted people that I joyfully left behind. I pray people will turn away from Lori and Ken’s apostate religion.

Darlene you’re so wrong to link trey because I think now I need to take a 2 hour shower and rub with lye to try to get the gross off me and I didn’t even get to the end. I stopped at ‘sex in all of its lawful forms’.

@Katy I’ve noticed since I left the Fundy world, there are a lot of people who have a similar story of spiritual abuse. Not sure if you saw my comment about the self righteous looney pants who told me that the reason I had migraines was because I was living in the flesh. I don’t know how I didn’t slap her.

The odd thing about Trey is, I’ve never seen anyone by that name commenting over at The Transformed Wife on Facebook. Now granted, I haven’t read all of her posts on Fb by a long shot, but you’d think the fella would comment under the article he wrote. But no Trey is to be found. Perhaps Trey is Lori’s male alter ego. 🙂

I’ve not read all of the comment section, but I would like to comment on the original topic — a woman cannot enjoy sex with her husband due to her traumatic memories of sexual abuse.

I’m not a professional counselor, but I can relate to Claire’s story, because there have been several times in my life when I have been in the same situation. I am a survivor of over a decade of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of my own father, starting at the age of three. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful, loving husband, and for the most part, we have enjoyed a great sex life. But there have been times when the pain, the trauma, the flashbacks, the nightmares, the sickening memories, the confusing emotions, and the fatigue from dealing with all of the above have raised there ugly head and gotten in the way. My husband and I have worked through these things, one day at a time. So I would like to be so bold as the share a few suggestions that might help Claire or others in her situation. (My suggestions are based on the assumption that the husband is a decent human being, not indifferent or domineering or abusive).

–Consider seeing a professional counselor. This could be very helpful. But I also think that in advising people to see a professional counselor, we need to be realistic that not everyone has the time or the money for professional counseling, or they might not be able to find a good one in their area. Also, don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “I’ve not been able to screw up my courage to see a counselor yet, so it must be my fault I’m still suffering.”

–If you haven’t done this already, talk to your husband about what is going on. Tell him about the past abuse and how it is currently affecting you. It will help him to know that the reason you don’t feel like having sex right now is not his fault. More importantly, if he is a good, loving husband, telling him what is going on will strengthen your marriage. After all, how can he be sensitive and supportive if he has not idea what’s going on?

–If you have not previously told your husband about the past abuse, be prepared for this to be a very emotional time for him. My husband has had to deal with major anger issues because of the abuse that I went through.

–Educate yourself and your husband as much as possible about the effects of trauma and PTSD.

–Talking and writing about traumatic memories and emotions helps get them out in the daylight, so that they cannot sneak up on you unexpectedly in the dark. Abusers do their horrendous deeds in the dark, in secret, hoping that their victims will be too ashamed to tell anyone. Bring it out to the light, where it belongs. The abuse was not your fault. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

–This may be emotionally difficult, but try to figure out exactly what it is that is triggering to you. Perhaps having sex at a different time of day, or a different area of the house, or in a different position may feel safer to you. Avoid situations that make you feel helpless or out of control. For example, I cannot stand to have anyone sit on the edge of my bed when I am laying down, even if I am fully clothed, I have the flu, and said person is bringing me an aspirin, because this position makes me feel trapped and reminds me of being abused. When you feel comfortable, explain to your husband what your triggers are and how to avoid them.

–However you are feeling, you won’t feel this way forever. Dealing with the aftermath of abuse is a lifelong process, and it goes in cycles. With each major life event, you will have to process the abuse all over again. But there will probably be times of peace and calm between the storms.

–Be patient with yourself. Be patient with your husband. Encourage him to be patient.

–Have realistic expectations. If it’s 3 in the morning and you’ve been up half the night dealing with PTSD symptoms or researching how to press criminal charges against your abuser, don’t expect yourself to jump into bed and have sex (unless you and your husband both happen to feel like it right then). Wait until you are well-rested and feeling somewhat stable.

–Sleep deprivation makes everything worse.

–Don’t force yourself to have sex (or perform other intimate acts) when you are feeling repulsed by the idea of it. Ultimately, this could lead to anger and resentment towards yourself and/or towards your husband, and could possibly cause longterm damage to your marriage and even your sex drive.

–Instead, when you are comfortable, take small steps towards being more physical with your husband. Take a walk together and hold his hand. Sit close to each other on the couch. Go to sleep in each others’ arms. Agree ahead of time not to have sex, if that makes you feel safer.

–If there was a time in your marriage when you used to enjoy sex with your husband? Before you were married, did you look forward to your honeymoon? If so, try to remember those times, remember the positive feelings, and think about feeling that way again in the future.

–Proceed only when you feel safe and you are ready. Remember, if you don’t have a no, you don’t have a yes. In other words, if you do not allow yourself to ever say no, then yes becomes meaningless. Let your “yes” be genuine and enthusiastic.

The Wary Witness, I think this is great advice and thank you so much for sharing it!

I wanted to comment on this piece:

–If you have not previously told your husband about the past abuse, be prepared for this to be a very emotional time for him.

There was an article I read a few months ago by a woman who had told her husband about abuse iirc rather late in their marriage and she talked about his reaction being strong. I think she said he was hurt that she hadn’t told him earlier. So I think this is great advice for a lot of reasons.

The Wary Witness.
I would like to add some thoughts to your excellent post.
Dissociation brings a whole new level to recovering from abuse.
It can be really difficult to nail down a problematic area or trigger when they are dissociated. It can leave the person completely bewildered as to why she behaves in certain manners.
It can be like a vapor of steam. You can see it for a second before it evaporates and yet you get to close it burns. But it’s gone.

I would add a suggestion about reading anything you can on the subject. People’s testimonies, recovery stories etc. There are places online where one can go to find a community to learn from. It doesn’t need to be Christian, the results of abuse are the same whether you believe or not.

Lea
I would like to add to that.
My husband knew I was abused prior to marriage. We were young.
Neither he or I knew the extent of the abuse or the shadow it would cast on our relationship.
It was like us travelling in a big dark canopied truck of garbage with no tailgate down a bumpy rutted road.
Stuff kept falling out every time we hit a bump. Little bits of paper, a chunk of rotten meat, or a huge bag of rotten diapers fell out onto this road we travelled.
Some of the road ahead was smooth and other times the ruts were so deep we could hardly move. Sometimes we travelled fast and other times slow.

The worst part was when my husband got out of the truck and said he couldn’t handle my truck of garbage and the trail I left behind.
He decided to walk the road alone , not by my side. He couldn’t take it.

It was devastating to drive that truck alone.
We eventually met up again and he got back into the truck.
And we still travel the road together. IT has become smoother, I have less stuff falling out behind us. And some of the stuff is so rotten we just closed the door so it doesn’t fall out anymore.

My point is. We both knew there was garbage in my truck . But it doesn’t make your spouse able to handle the situation . It is hard for everyone involved. A spouse may need help or support.
After years of travelling that emotional road by myself, when we finally talked about why he left me alone to deal with it, without his support. He said He could not deal with his own emotions about how badly I was abused. He just couldn’t deal with it.. So he emotionally checked out.
Every husband will respond differently.
And they need help too.

Your imagery of the truck is wonderful, btw. I hope Claire finds people like you and Wary Witness to help her through this, instead of Lori (plus a bunch of men who have no idea what they are talking about).

Thank you for sharing. That was a really powerful post you wrote. Really appreciate your willingness to share very personal details to help many others.

Bunkababy,

I’m thrilled to hear that you are reading Katherine Bushnell’s book. That’s such a great book with so many answers to hard questions. Very few people have the patience to really dive into the heavy reading of that book but its so totally worth it.

What the….? That’s not even what that passage in Romans means! It’s referring to being dead to YOUR OWN sin, not to being dead to what sin another person committed against you. It’s almost like they are accusing her of sin just for having been a victim. I feel sorry for Claire. Alas, until she learns to pop open her Bible for herself, read verses in context, and realize the gurus she relies upon are heretics, she will continue to be victimized over and over again.

My guess is they know exactly what they’re talking about. They want kinky sex on demand and they want absolute submission because it gives them a thrill, and they are willing to use dunces like Lori to promote their agenda. They probably know that women like Claire are being harmed by their advice, and it probably gives them pleasure to think about it. Never underestimate the sickness and depravity of a pharisee.

Avid Reader
Have you read War on the Saints? by Jesse Penn Lewis?
I found an old copy of it at the thrift store. I devoured it. I couldn’t believe how it mirrored the Church movement we were involved in, in the 90’s . It was a mess for us to disentangle ourselves from. I found the book about 10 yrs later after we essentially walked away from any form of church. It was an amazing discovery.
A lot of people seem to take issue with it……blah blah blah. I am not theological enough to worry about why they do. All I know is it explained a whole lotta strange fire happening. I am not opposed the the works of the Holy Spirit at all. But He seems to work in another way that what I was taught in that movement for sure.
False doctrine abounds!!
Gotta keep on guard.
I have recently found this woman’s blog….that is where i read about Katherine Bushnell. And right now my son is in Greece , he was just in the ancient ruins of Corinth…..and he is going other places as well. His girlfriend is doing her masters on Greek architecture of the Ottoman Empire…..so they are on an educational mission.

Lea
“I should say I get that response because my first response to upsetting things is to distract, distract, distract myself until I can deal with it.”

It’s what he did. Got busy starting businesses. I think he had 3 jobs at one point. He had an upbringing that was turbulent and some of my stuff ignited memories for him. He just became ANGRY at me. He wasn’t nice to be with. He could not verbalize feelings at all.
So it wasn’t until years later when I asked him how he could be so mean to just leave me dealing with police, abusers who threatened me constantly….a story I look back on and think how in God’s name did i make it out?

He just said he could not deal with someone he loved being wounded so bad….we then dealt with it and I realized how much the trauma and on going trauma was affecting him. He still has poor verbal skills when it comes to basic pain in his body…..it is funny and frustrating at the same time.

A part of me wants to lash out and go freak crazy on Lori and her utter depravity. But there has to be a better way to deal with her and the damage she is doing.

That makes me crazy. It makes me want to do something really smart to combat the damage women are doing to women!!
It’s bad enough we have men abusing women and children. Men taking advantage of their wives. Men so caught up in their own lust, they have no idea how to LOVE like Christ loved the church and poured himself out for her. Men in churches who are so vile who rape little girls like myself. And then we have this IGNORANT ASSHAT of a woman perpetuating abuse. My mother perpetuated abuse on me. She did it full well knowing what she was doing.

But Lori is another abuser. She is a selfish selfish selfish woman who gains pleasure at others pain. I Hate what she does. There has to be a way to deal with this ……

If it’s any consolation, the name Lori Alexander is not a well-known name among Christians where I am in central Canada. And for that I am thankful. Don’t statistics say that 1 in every 4 women were sexually abused at one time in their lives? I wouldn’t call that “rare”. The ones I know who are Christians, they do read their Bibles, pray, claim Scripture, and for some that’s enough. For others they need medication; some temporary, some permanent. Others need professional counselling.(they do say “counselling” but if the only such thing for them is Michael Pearl; well, that’s pretty narrow) Again, some temporary, some permanent, some on and off. Thankfully he is not really a household name in Christian circles either where I am.
Where does Lori live? She doesn’t do book tours, does she?

I went over to The Transformed Wife on Facebook and guess what? I have earned the honor of being banned. LoL! Now I, too, am on the list of those whom Lori Alexander has snubbed. Should I consider this a privilege?

Thank you everyone for the supportive responses to my comment that I posted yesterday. Whenever I share pieces of my story of being an abuse survivor, whether in person or anonymously online, I always cringe and wonder how it is going to be received. But I think it’s so important to get these issues out into the light and talk about them.

Darlene, feel free to share my comment, as long as you provide a link.

Bunkababy, I totally agree about reading everything you can about the subject. And thank you for telling about your experience with dissociation. I think dissociation adds a whole other dimension.

Glad to hear that you did make it out of all that. My heart goes out to you. It sounds like you’ve had to walk a pretty hard road. I feel the same way that you do when you read Lori’s stuff! We all do. It’s really hard to read her stuff because we know the real damage that it causes people.

About Jessie Penn Lewis—there’s so many books I wish there was time to read. No, I haven’t read that book. What little I know about her is that she was the reason that Katherine Bushnell’s book was discovered. Apparently, Bushnell’s original book had been lost to history for several decades. One day someone came across Jessie’s book The Magna Charta of Women—which borrowed heavily from Bushnell’s writings. That caused people to become curious enough to try to find Bushnell’s book. Turns out that Bushnell had filed a copy with the Library of Congress, which was the only way they were able to find it.

By the way, if anyone is curious about the book that we are discussing—Katherine Bushnell’s original book is in the public domain. Here’s the link to a free PDF copy:

Hi. I know this post is an old one so I will be brief. I’m a married man who has been married to a wonderful woman who is a survivor of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. First by her father then her ex-husband.

Something in this blog stuck out. The fact that the woman vomited after sex reminded me of my own wife. After 20+ years of this, you would think that I would “get it”. Now, I do. Thanks for sharing.

Hi, Unorthodocsjew. Thanks for your comment and I’m so sorry to hear what your wife has experienced. Survivors of trauma may experience physical responses to situations. It’s a coping response stored in the brain and the body. I hope your wife is able to seek counseling from a trauma informed professional. You might want to consider seeking counseling as well as a loved one caring for her. It’s tough.

A really good book to read on how the body is affected by trauma is “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk. There is so much information in here you might find helpful in understanding your wife’s responses to her trauma experiences.